A documentary produced by the BBC in 2015 caused a stir in China and in the UK. It featured Chinese teaching practices and discipline techniques used on British students and made people take a second look at Chinese education methods. Now the heat has gone, but the education exchanges between the two countries are still going on, as experts and teachers gather at the 2016 China-UK Basic Education forum held in Shanghai.

China-UK Basic Education Forum held in Shanghai

Mathematics education in primary schools is a hot topic at the 2016 China-UK Basic Education Forum. Since 2014, the China-British Mathematics Teacher Exchange Program initiated by the British government and Shanghai has seen more than 370 teachers from both countries involved.

The program is funded by the British government and will continue for the next four years. Its aim is to educate pupils in some 8 thousand primary schools using teaching methods of math teachers from Shanghai.

Through the program, teachers in Shanghai teach mathematics in the UK classrooms. At the same time, they are also inspired by their British counterparts. 

Zhang Yuhong is a mathematics teacher with 10 years of teaching experience. She went to the UK for a month as part of the program.
 
"In British schools, they use hands-on learning tools a lot, so it's good for developing the kids' ability to imagine and ability to operate in a classroom. We can also add some of these kinds of activities for our students, so they can understand more abstract concepts through some hands-on experiences," said teacher Zhang Yuhong.

Now this teaching method has also been brought into some primary schools in Shanghai. In January next year, Zhang Yuhong and other math teachers will go to the UK again, and bring Shanghai textbooks there, providing authentic Chinese mathematics teaching for British children.

Over the next two years, Shanghai will have 70 primary school mathematics teachers each year sent to the United Kingdom to participate in a math teacher exchange program.